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Darwin Awards
2009 Slush Pile

This item was recently submitted by a reader.
Should I include it in the archive?
Vote to tell me what *you* think!

Playing around with buses

2009 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance

All of this happened when I was riding the public transit system, right up till the time I picked up my first motorcycle. From 1988 - 99. The bus transport in India is loosely regulated, in terms of safety. The first couple of incidents occured in 1990-91. Quite near misses. I used to ride the bus to and back from school for about three stops (about 2km). There was a downhill stretch that ended about 200m before the bus stop. Well, there used to be a halt at the bottom of that hill, but was done away with as it was increasing traffic congestion. I was riding buses from '88, and two years of getting used to that bus stop meant, I felt quite lazy the extra 200m added. So I used to make it a point to get off a moving bus (usually doing about 25-30 km/h). The next step was, of course, boarding a moving bus, and when a bunch of foolhardy school boys get together, insanity is usually the result. The narrow misses usually involved getting on a moving bus. These buses have inset stairs with an angled bar along side to provide a hand hold. Typical cross section would look like this:

| Outer wall | |

| bracing rail that goes up to the roof |

| +--------+ |

/| |

/ | |

/ | |

/

| |

/

| [the angled line is a handrail] | /

| | /

| |/

| +--------+-- Floor level |

| |

+--+ |

|

Stairs | +--+ | | +--+ Running board (doesnt protrude)

1989: Horseplay on a gravel pile near the bus stop.

It's quite common to see road surfacing material being stock piled beside the roads out here. There was a convenient pile about 5 feet high a few yards away from the bus stop. A couple of friends and I were involved in the usual horse

play when a bus pulled up. In a mad scramble to get to the bus before it pulled away, I cop a fall in the pile. Oh, and did I mention that the gravel (road bed grade) is actually 1-2" chunks of crushed granite rock? Or that as a eleven year old I was wearing short pants? Well, one of them left a deep cut on my inner right thigh, four inches from my family jewels. Still have that scar.

1990: Riding a tiger.

(Well almost) School was out a bit early and a friend and I were walking down the road to the next stop (instead of the usual one). The reason was, my friend did not have enough fare for his destination from the place where I usually boarded. So, we were walking along and all of a sudden we realized that a bus had made an impromptu stop about 40 mtrs behind us. (Common on crowded routes. The driver makes an impromptu stop so that the conductor can issue fare tickets to all passengers on the bus.) We still had another 150 or so mtrs to get to the next bus stop, so we broke into a run for the bus. We reached the bus as it started pulling away. My friend went first and got on. But by the time I got a grip on the hand rail, the bus was going at a fair clip, faster than I could run. I didn't have the momentum for the leap that would get me on the the lowest stair, and I was scared to let go. Kind of like riding a tiger. Luckily one of the passengers riding the running board grabbed me under the armpit and hauled me in. Darn dicey that.

1992: Clipped. Imaging a bus stop that has no bay. The outer most lane is the bay. There is a bus broken down about 6 mtrs ahead of the bay. Any bus leaving the stop has to pass the broken down bus at an angle. There was the usual scramble for a bus leaving the stop. Five of us. Four got in, I was the last. The parked bus clipped my shoulder and dropped me to the ground. Missed clipping my skull instead. Winded, nothing broken or damaged. Yet another close call.

1995: Please remain seated. To this day I can't figure out what exactly happened. My commute was longer and I was coming up to the stop where I had to change buses. I noticed the bus that I was in pass the bus that I had to change to. Rather than wait for the stop where I could change, I knew that there was another intermediate stop for my target bus. Unfortunately the one I was riding would not stop there. Hopping off a bus was nothing new to me, I'd been doing it for six years by then. So I got to the running board and assumed the position. At the right moment I lean back, dropped off the bus into a running motion. Normally I would hit the ground running and peel off at an angle to the bus heading for the kerb. I think I just might have leaned back a little too much. Or maybe the bus accelerated at that very moment. The next thing I knew, my feet flew up and I sat down *hard* on the road. By hard, mean like a ton of bricks. Thankfully I was wearing jeans. But still I couldn't sit properly for the next three days.

1996: Supports may not be as strong as they look. This was by far the closest shave I ever had. This should at least earn me a honorable mention, though I escaped with zero injuries. Otherwise, I was 18, sober as a judge (In fact I am a teetotaler even today), and a virgin to boot. The bus was barelling down to the lights at a decent 30-40 km/hr. I was in position. I sprinted, lined up and boarded. The sequence normally goes this way: grab handrail, leap to running board, steady up. But somehow today it was changed a little. I made the leap first, a split second before grabbing the rail. Did I mention the poor maintenance, and hordes of youngsters who hang off the rail as a matter of routine? The welds normally don't last more than six months. This rail, was hanging by a thread. So back to the story, I leaped a split second before I grabbed

the rail, and when I grabbed it, it came off in my hand. Had I grabbed it when I was leaping, there would have been absolutely no way for me to retain momentum or balance. I would have been road pizza as there were two buses bearing down on the one I was trying to get into. Well, the driver and conductor had a laugh about it when I presented the rail to the driver. It was supposed to be fixed the next day in the shop.

I'm not mentioning atleast a couple of dozen spills while getting off a bus.

Still I kept going at this till I got my first bike. I'm eligible for more than one honorable mention on that baby,

But that'll keep for another day.

Hope you like this Wendy :)

Submitted on 02/05/2009

Submitted by: Mike, the Mad Mekkanik
Reference: NA. No incidents reported.

Copyright © 2009 DarwinAwards.com

>> Moderator Scores <<

Bruce said:
Definitely Toss: No Self-Selection
Although I've never been to India I've seen plenty of pictures and heard plenty of stories (many from Indian co-workers) about the horrors of the public transit system in the 80's & 90's. Apparently jumping on & off crowded moving buses was very common. Although a few of these were very entertaining I'm inclined to toss this because it's all just a result of your environment. Oh yeah, and as you can see trying to draw pictures doesn't work very well... Thanks just the same, Mike.


James said:
Definitely Toss: No Self-Selection
Highly amusing! You really should write a book about this! However, I have to agree with Bruce. Public transportation in India is a BIT different than elsewhere, and people generally do hop on and off at will, usually without incident!


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